Goodbye Garret Anderson; Goodbye, "GAARP"

Didn't want to end this week without some words on Garret Anderson, who retired from baseball on Tuesday. Anderson was with the Dodgers for much of 2010, and in typical Joe Torre style favoring veterans, appeared in 80 games for the Dodgers, which was at least 70 games too many. Oh, what a horrible year. Anderson's batting average sunk beneath the Mendoza line on April 17 and never made it back to .200, dipping as low as .119. Anderson ended with an OPS+ of 30 (for comparison, specialty pitcher Hong-Chih Kuo had an OPS+ of 54 last year). He had 28 hits in 80 games, with 13 of those hits being XBH. He struck out 34 times. He actually was intentionally walked once, by the Mets' Mike Pelfrey, who opted to face Brad Ausmus and his .250 BA with a man on third and one out (Ausmus scored the run; the Mets lost the game in the 13th on a FJL solo HR). Anderson did have highlights in 2010. Well, maybe one: a walk-off single to center in the 14th inning that won a game for...